1. Field of the Invention
The invention, in general, relates to electronic business cards. More particularly, this invention relates to a method of exchanging electronic business cards through mobile phones between a user and contacts of the user. The contacts of the user may comprise personal and business contacts of the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronically cataloging traditional business cards may be time consuming and prone to error. Business card information logged into an electronic contact management system may become obsolete over a period of time. The user may run out of the traditional business cards for exchange with the user's business contacts. The user may need to track relationship context along with the business card information of the user's business contacts to make note of context information such as place, time, relationship with a particular business contact, etc. The user may also need to send updates to the business card information of the user to user's business contacts in real time. The updates to the user's business card information may comprise a change in job profile, address, phone number or email address of the user. The user may also need to stay updated on the latest business card information of the user's business contacts at all times.
The user may also lose electronic business cards received from user's business contacts due to loss, malfunction, or replacement of the user's mobile device. Therefore, for an instance of loss of the electronic business cards, the user may need a backup of the electronic business cards of the user's personal and business contacts to retrieve the electronic business cards back on the mobile device of the user. The user may also want to send updated contact information to new business contacts through the user's mobile device automatically without user intervention. Existing online service providers' provide communication means to exchange business card information through web sites and electronic mails (emails), and business card scans stored on computer. The communication means provided by the existing online service providers may not capture the context of the exchange, for example, time and date of exchange, user notes, location, etc., nor may it capture social media information (e.g. blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter information). However, means to exchange the business card information instantly using mobile phones may not be provided by the online service providers.
Therefore, there is need for a method and a system that enables the user to exchange electronic business cards instantly through the user's mobile phone, share business card information (including social media information and context) with the user's business contacts, and capture context of meetings with the business contacts. There is also a need for the method and the system for storing the electronic business cards of the user's business contacts on a central server as a backup means. There is also a need for the method and the system to automatically update modified business card information of the user's business contacts on the user's mobile device and vice versa.